


It Came from Tumblr: Danny Phantom

by Eternal_Phantom



Series: It Came From Tumblr [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: more tags may be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26452525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal_Phantom/pseuds/Eternal_Phantom
Summary: Ficbits and loose chapters from my Tumblr focused on Danny Phantom
Series: It Came From Tumblr [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924756
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	1. Ten Years Later -Dr. Jazz Fenton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written out of rage of Butch's ten years later.

“Jazz, are you sure about this?” Danny looked at the sky concerned.

“Little brother, you have given so much to this place and it’s people, now it’s your turn to follow your dream. Just relax and let me help you.”

“I think ‘Let me help you’ is as much your catchphrase as ‘Going Ghost’ is mine.” Danny gave her a wry smile. “But a lot of my enemies are _dangerous_. I don’ want you getting hurt doing something I should have been.”

“I’ve got this Danny. Don’t worry, I’ve been working out a plan with Valerie. We’ve got this covered.” 

At this Danny relaxed slightly. Valerie may have gotten past the ‘All ghosts are evil’ thing, but she was still one of the most viscous hunters her knew. She could keep Jazz safe.

~ 

“Got your first patients,” The Red Huntress flew into the small clinic, Johnny 13 and Kitty is a glowing net.

“Thanks Val.” The two ghosts were unceremoniously dumped on the floor, The Red Huntress saluted before flying out again.

“Hey Jazz, long time no see,” Johnny said a little nervously.

Kitty whirled on him “And _how_ do you know her?”

“I’m the girl Johnny chose to pretend to like so he could sacrifice me to get you back when you lost your form.” Jazz explained as calmly as if she was discussing weather. “He’s very nervous right now because obviously he knows I’m working with the Huntress and is wondering what revenge I have in store for him, and if you’re being dragged into it.”

Johnny gulped.

“I’m not going to lie, Johnny 13. Having my first romance end that way was, let’s just say _unpleasant_ and leave it at that. But that’s not why we’re here. You two have been having another spat, and dragging the town into it, _again_. So we’re going to talk about what’s bothering you both.”

She reached over and took Kitty’s hand in one of hers and Johnny’s in the other. “Your love was so strong it survived your deaths. It’s strong enough to survive what you’re going through now and we’re going to make sure of it.”

~

“Thanks so much Dr. Fenton.” Sydney Pointdexter rose from his seat.

“No, thank you.” Jazz insisted. “You’re the first person from the Zone who started come here willingly. It’s helped a lot.”

“Well after how you helped the Lunch Lady and the Box Ghost, I definitely figured it was worth a try.” Rather than flat out dismissed the two obsessive ghosts, Jazz had found a way to redirect them. Upon finding out Lunch Lady could conjour food that was perfectly safe and edible to humans, she’d had her set up with various homeless shelters and relief efforts. She was now praised as a hero in her own right.

Box Ghost ended up working with relief efforts too, in his case in making sure the supply shipments got where they were going. Any shipments that would normally be lost were brought in. (The hard part had been getting him to let go of them. The simple solution was to actually pay him in his preferred cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. He easily lost interest in metal and wooden cases over those.)

“I’m glad. I feel better about myself then I think I have since long before my death. But when your brother comes back in town, could you find a way to let me know. I really need to apologize.”

“Sydney, you know Danny doesn’t hold it against you.” Jazz reminded him.

“No, but I do. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t let anyone else get bullied like I did. And not only did I not notice years of it, but I jumped to a conclusion and protected a bully and stopped the victim from standing up against him. Danny basically let Dash go after him for the next three years and I can’t help but think I’m at least part of the cause. I know there are other reason, keeping his secret identity and just how much the bullying became institutionalized at Casper High. But I still have to apologize for the part I played. I really feel like it’s something I need to do.”

“I’ll let him know when he’s back on break.” Jazz promised. “He knows where to find you, right?”

“Yeah, I’m staying with Klemper now.” It would be a while before Sydney went back to his own ‘lair’. He’d created his own living Hell, rebuilding the place and people who’d tormented him over and over. It had temporarily gotten better after his encounter with Danny, but had soon reverted.

Thanks to Dr. Fenton he realized how much damage it was still doing to him in terms of his anger issues and his self worth. Sure most ghosts found Klemper annoying, but Sydney found a kindred spirit in the lonely soul who just wanted a friend. Not to mention how much it warmed his heart that no mattered how often he was around, Klemper’s face lit up whenever he saw him. The chilly ghost treasured his first real friend, and knowing that someone truly cared and wanted his company did as much for healing Sydney’s hurts as these sessions with Dr, Fenton. If he ever managed to turn the School into something less toxic, he’d certainly be bringing Klemper back with him.

Sydney left and Jazz began to pack up. She had _plans_ for tonight. 

Plans that were interrupted by a dour ghost wearing a spiked crown.

“Prince Aragon,” Jazz greeted cautiously. She recognized him from Danny’s files.

“Miss Fenton,” The ghost greeted with a hint of contempt.

“ _Doctor_ Fenton, if you don’t mind.” Jazz held herself firm. Somehow she doubted the exiled Prince was here to enlist her services.

“I do mind. I’ve been hearing of you ‘fixing’ ghosts, letting them fit into human society. So I’ve come to ask you woman, if you think you can fix **_me._** ”

He was obviously trying to be intimidating, but Jazz just met his gaze evenly. “No.”

“So you admit-”

“In order to help _anyone,_ I need one thing. That the individual I’m helping wants to improves, wants things to be better. You don’t care about bettering yourself. You don’t care about adjusting to have an easier time in the world. You want the world- both worlds- to bend to your whim, or to break them if they don’t. So no, I can’t fix you. The only thing I can do is help put you down like the overstuffed peacock you are.”

Prince Aragon snarled at the insult, his teeth sharpening as he began to change into his dragon form. The change had barely started when Jazz moved suddenly and there was immense pain for where his heart would be. “What…have you done…”

Jazz opened the chamber on the gun she had pulled out. “Ecto-Electrical bullets. Fenton works latest. Doesn’t do lasting harm, but can disrupt almost any ghost powers.” She loaded another round in the Chamber. “This one is a weaker version of Dad’s Ecto-Dejecto. The working version. It won’t wither you away to nothing, but it will sap your powers until your weaker than Spectre in Nirvana.”

She placed the gun between the fallen ghost’s eyes. It was a more brutal style than she preferred, but if there was one thing Jazz Fenton understood, it was psychology.

Ghosts were physiologically _very_ different from mortals. With the semi-exception of Halfa’s they had no such things as bones or internal organs. Even the ones that did, it was more that they expected them to be there rather than to serve a purpose. Putting a bullet between Aragon’s eyes was no more dangerous than his kneecap or even his hair. But most ghosts were once human, and Aragon was no exception. The way his eyes shrunk to pinpricks show he instinctively recognized this as a killing shot. 

Jazz refused to let her face change as she fired the energy draining bullet, then sucked him up in the thermos, and only then allowed herself to falter. Aragon would be weak for months before the dejecto wore off, he wouldn’t be a threat to anyone till then. And she’d achieved what she needed. She’d made him afraid of her.

He might avoid her afterwards. He might seek her out to conquer his fear metaphorically and literally. She didn’t know. But fearing her was acknowledging she could harm him. It was a small step first step to getting rid of his misogyny, but a step none the less.

Valerie whistled as she walked in. “Looks like one of the spooks gave you some trouble.”

“Prince Aragon.” She lifted the thermos. “He won’t be bothering anyone else for a while, at least.”

“We’ll drop him off when we pick up your Mom. If you’re still up for tonight.”

“Yeah, a night off is exactly what i need.” Jazz pulled on her jacket, slipping the thermos in. 

“That’s good, because Sam’s already waiting with Kitty and Ember. All we need is to pick up Mrs. Fenton and Dani. Girl’s Night Out is go!” Valerie cheered.


	2. (Ghost) Skeletons in the Closet (StAS Cross)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snippet of an ooooold idea about Jimmy Olsen's mother being an estranged Jazz Fenton

They reached the window of the penthouse apartment Vlad Masters was currently staying at. The stranger with a voice so like Jimmy’s put his hand on the window and it vanished at his touch.

Once they were through the stranger released the glass, causing it to reform. “Vlad, where are you?!”  
  


A dark chuckled greeted them. “My my, so it seems there’ll be more than one blast from my past. It’s been a while Daniel.”  
  


“It’s Danny!” The stranger snapped.  
  


~~  
  


_“Ah yes, the intrepid Lois Lane, and this with you must be James Olsen. I was hoping we’d meet.”  
  
_

_“It’s Jimmy.” He responded, somewhat shocked a reclusive multibillionaire knew his name, much less wanted to meet him.  
  
_

_“_ _You do take after your Uncle, don’t you.”_

~~

He’d suspected the stranger, Danny, was related to Jimmy, now he was pretty sure _this_ was the mysterious Uncle Jimmy hadn’t known about.

“What did you do Vlad?” Danny growled.  
  


“Several things, you know better than most.” Masters seemed almost coy.  
  


“I’m not playing games here. What did you do with Jimmy?”  
  


“Nothing. I merely wanted to tweak Jasmine’s nose about being here. And when I realized he knew nothing of you, drop a few breadcrumbs to tweak it further.”  
  


“Uh-huh. And the fact that he went missing a few hours after you met, while an amalgamate of your Vultures was sighted in the area is just a coincidence. It was probably grabbing you a latte.” Danny said sarcastically.

Masters froze at this. “ _That_ is very concerning. I should be the only one capable of using that technology, and yet I made no such being.” He turned his wheelchair around. “Daniel, if you and Mr. Kent would join me, we have work to do.”  
  


“Mister Who?” Danny asked as Superman’s eye’s went wide.   
  


“Oh don’t bother trying to deny it. It’s obvious if you know what to look for. I’d wager down to my last million Jasmine Olsen knows too, though I doubt she’s said anything. But have no worries. We had a relationship not unlike yours and that upstart Lex, and I never let out Daniel’s secret.”

“You’re a supervillain.” Superman said flatly.

“Ex, I’m afraid. But come now. Your friend, Daniel’s nephew is missing and someone has stolen my technology to do it. I believe it behooves us to find the lad and culprit as quickly as possible.”


	3. Spirit Bender (Danny Phantom Cross)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another old idea where Danny accidentally gets stuck in the Spirit World of Avatar due to one of his parents attempts to get rid of Phantom permanently. He's decided to give up on the living, only for an accidental friendship with Sokka to pull him back into wanting to help people.

Sokka came to, rubbing his head. Great would not be a good word to describe how he felt. “What happened?”

  
  
“You jumped in front of a magical trap meant for the Avatar, and got knocked into the Spirit World.” A dry voice answered. “Which wouldn’t have done anything to him, as he’s the bridge between human and spirit and could have just walked out. No such luck for you.”

Sokka glared up at the person talking. He looked almost human, but the unnatural green eyes and light glow denoted him and a spirit. “What’s it to you?” 

The spirit shrugged. “Not much, but I figured I can at least get you to Avatar Roku.”  
  


“And why would I want to see him?” Sokka asked.  
  


“Well, for one thing there’s a lot of nasty things in here that would love to make a meal of you, but won’t risk his anger. For another he watches over Aang and you guys, which means if you want to know whats going on with your friend and your sister, he’s the guy to talk to.”  
  


Sokka stood, but kept one had on his boomerang. “Fine, but I don’t trust you.”

“Of course you don’t.” The boy said bitterly, leading them on in silence.

The Alien geometry eventually gave way to what looked like a well tended garden. Sitting on a bench by a gentle pond was a man Sokka’d only seen in statue form.  
  


“Hey Roku, brought him.” The spirit nodded at the former Avatar, then floated up to a branch high on a tree, and seemed to fall asleep.

“I guess he brought me here as a favor to you?” Sokka asked hesitantly. On one hand this guy was obviously Fire Nation. One the other, this guy was also sort of Aang.

Roku chuckled. “Actually he was quite worried about you. We saw what happened through the pond, and he took off before I could act.” He smiled fondly at the figure in the tree. “He has a very kind heart, but is hesitant to show it. But come. Let us see if we can find a way to get you back home.”


	4. The Ghost Town Job (Leverage Cross)

Mr. Lancer took a sip of the coffee offered him and glanced at the people facing him. He didn’t know what they could do, didn’t know what anyone could. But he was out of options, so he had to try.

“Last year Daniel Fenton entered Caspar High as a freshman. His sister was a joy to teach and I’d hoped he’d be the same. And while he didn’t have her raw genius, he was a bright inquisitive boy who was fascinated by space and dreamed of being an astronaut.”  
  


“Then in mid fall he changed overnight. That’s not hyperbole. There was some sort of accident, no one ever got any details as far as I know. But suddenly Mr. Fenton was withdrawn and skittish. He also became incredibly clumsy, ending up being banned from holding things like glass test tubes and beakers. He also skipped his homework and fell asleep in class. Any one of those things wouldn’t be odd for a teenager, but all at once?”  
  


“At one point we hired a school psychologist. I hoped she’d help, but it turns out taking Mr. Fenton there was the worst thing I could have done. That…that _bitch_ was using her skill in psychology to manipulate the students into states of apathetic depression, which I’m sorry to say it seems many other school districts translated as ‘good behavior’. She was chased out, but the odds of Mr. Fenton trusting an adult, especially one of the faculty, because nil to none.”

  
  
Nate listened. He hadn’t heard anything they really could help with. His first impulse when he heard about the mysterious accident was that Danny’s behavior was linked to something his parents had done, yet that didn’t seem to be were Lancer was headed.  
  


“I made some small attempts, but nothing became clear till spring, when Amity Park got a new resident. One who was, it seemed, an old friend of the Fenton family. And what became immediately and readily apparent was Mr. Fenton- Daniel that is, not his father, _loathed_ the man. One could not even mention his name without seeing the boy tense. His sister actively tried to keep him away from the man, seeming angry and scared in turn. I made a discreet inquiry to the Fentons and Jack, Daniel’s father, mentioned said friend had lost contact with him, but they’d gotten back in touch. Last Fall.”

The insinuation couldn’t be clearer. “Mr. Lancer, who is this friend.?” Nate asked. It had to be someone powerful, or else the man would have gone to child services at least.  
  


Lancer scowled. “Vlad Masters.”

“Vlad Masters, as in CEO of Dalv Vlad Masters?” Sophie clarified.

Lancer nodded tightly, anger etched on his face.

Hoo boy, This wasn’t going to be easy, but not the worst they’d done either. “Mr. Lancer, what is it you want us to do?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Protect the children. Ideally drag that rat bastards name through the mud and cost him every cent of his billions. But above everything else, protect the children.” He took a deep breath. “But you need to be aware of what happened in November. Our Mayor was up for election and Masters, despite only living in Amity Park a few moths threw his hat into the ring. He shouldn’t have had any chance and yet he won - by a unanimous vote.”

“Little obvious he fixed it,” Elliot commented.

“If it were just that…I remember going to the polls that day. I remember showing my ID. However, I have no recollection of actually voting. I can tell you for a fact I was fully intending to vote for Montez, but the truth is I can’t say for sure what I did in that booth.” 

That…was significantly more worrying.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Lancer. Handling these cases is what we do.” Nate stood and shook his hand. He and the team had planning to do.

~

As soon as the client left, Hardison was on his feet, pacing the room trying to get rid of all the nervous energy he’d had building the moment he’d head that name. “I know him.”

“You know Vlad Masters?” Parker asked. “Have you hacking his system already? I was getting ready to rob him right before Dubenich.”

“No. The kid. Danny Fenton. I know him. He’s…he’s best friend with my nephew. There’s some billionaire bastard targeting kids and Angela’s baby boy is right there.” His voice was thick with emotion and it was obvious he was trying to hold back tears.

Sophie put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that.” Hardison snapped.

“It’s going to be okay.” Elliot repeated, putting his arm around Hardison’s shoulder. “Because we’re going to make it okay.”

“It’s what we do.” Parker chirped, hugging all three of them.

Nate didn’t join in the hugging, but he did catch Hardison’s eye and nodded. “Let’s go steal a billionaire’s peace of mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with Lancer uses his book expletives so he doesn't curse in front if children. In a situation where he's not near them and not in a place he shouldn't get used to swearing, he let's himself go.


	5. The Ghost Town Job Snippet 2

“Nate what are we going to do.” Sophie asked as the team entered the room.

  
  
“Well,” Nate turned around in his chair, the little tight smile he had when he was stressed tugging at his lips. “I feel no shame in saying none of my plans involved Masters being an honest to God super villain. So we need to maintain our covers while we rejigger the plan.”

“Not that.” Elliot crossed his arms. “What are we doing about Danny?”

“We should be good on that front. He doesn’t know we’re on to him, and isn’t likely to stop us from screwing over Masters.” Nate deflected, knowing what they were really asking.

“How are we getting him out of here?” Parker cut straight to the heart of the matter.

“We can’t exactly kidnap him. We have no way to reliably grab him and Danny clearly wants to stay here.”

“Don’t play dumb, Nate, it’s not a good look for you.” Sophie rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah getting people to do what you want is kind of your whole thing.” Parker added.

“Marks, Corrupt Government agents, criminals. Not teenage boys.”

“I’ve known the Fenton’s for years. I always thought they were crazy, but, like, the harmless kind.” Hardison pointed out. “But their kid being ghostly? Not harmless. They’re _hunting_ him, Nate.”

“And Danny doesn’t look that different. So either they’re okay with dissecting someone who looks like their son, or they haven’t been paying enough attention to their son to recognize him.” Elliot pointed out. “We can’t leave him here.”

“I _know_.” Nate hissed, his real feelings slipping through. He hadn’t been comfortable with the situation in Amity Park from the moment he realized it was real. The town seemed blasé about the ‘Ghost Boy’, but it was a short trip in his mind from ‘Ghost Boy’ to ‘Dead Boy’ to ‘ _Sam’._

When Sam died, the man Nate had been died with him. The truth of the matter was the moment he’d found out about Danny, he knew he couldn’t leave the kid here, to be hunted, sacrificed, and scapegoated. and the team knew it too.

“Right now we need to focus on Masters. He’s a clear and present danger to everyone, _especially_ Danny. But our client asked us to protect the children. And that’s what we’re going to do.”


	6. The Ghost Town Job Snippet 3

“So,” Valerie’s voice was no less threatening than usual. “If you knew Vlad was scum the whole time, why didn’t you tell anyone?" 

Phantom looked at her in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? I think I’ve made it pretty clear since before he landed in Amity Park I hated him." 

"Yeah, and most ghosts hate the living. Why not share the details you obviously had?” Valerie folded her arms at him. 

“First off, that’s not true. Second, I didn’t know about **that** until we found her today, Third…” Phantom trailed off and looked away. For a moment Valerie though he wasn’t going to finish. “…My mom." 

"Nice try. Ghosts don’t have Moms.” Valerie charged her weapons in threat. 

But Phantom looked more unimpressed than threatened. "You do realize I used to be a normal human, right?“ 

It felt like a punch in the gut, because _no she very much did not_. It was easy to fall into the thought pattern of ghosts being these malevolent alien beings she’d somehow forgotten they were people that had died. "What does you Mom have to do with anything?” she hoped she didn’t sound as shaken as she felt. 

“Vlad’s obsessed with her. He currently thinks he can slime his way into her heart through his money and good image. If he loses that-” Phantom seemed to shrink in on himself. “He might go for being more direct, like not letting her have a say." 

Oh. Oh _& $*)_ Valerie switched her weapons off and flopped down. This was too much in way too short a time. Her mentor she’d been trying to make proud was an amoral madman creating half-ghost clones in the basement of his manor, Phantom was a teen like her who had died, and was trying to protect his mom. And this wasn’t even starting on the thief who’d broken into Vlad’s house. "Anything else You want to tell me to shatter my world." 

“'Want’ is a strong word.” Phantom grumbled. 

Valerie groaned. “What is it?" 

Phantom looked like he really didn’t want to continue. "The reason he’s trying to create a half ghost kid is, okay, you need to promise you’re not going to do something stupid.” He started pacing midair. “What am I saying, of course you’re going to do something stupid. You’ve been manipulated and lied to and _of course_ you want to hurt him, **I** want to hurt him." 

"Phantom-" 

"But when you find out you can, you’ll go after him and he’s in public and be exposed, and then he won’t have any reason to hold back." 

” _Phantom_ -“ 

"He’s gonna kill Dad. It’s easy enough to stop his covert plans, but if he goes brute force full power I can’t stop him, I-" 

” _ **Danny!**_ “ She didn’t like using his first name, not when he shared it with someone she actually liked, but she hoped it would be enough to snap him out of the spiral he was heading into. Sure enough, he head snapped up and his eyes looked, for lack of a better word, haunted. "I don’t just hunt for revenge, I do it to protect people. No matter how much I want his head on a pike, I won’t put someone else in danger. Including you family.” The thought that he had one still made her stomach twist, but she had to get past it.

He took a deep breath (why did he need to breath???) and let it out slowly. “Vlad’s half ghost." 

That made no sense, which actually helped her keep what little calm she had left. "You want to break that down for me?" 

"There was an accident in college and- actually better example. Remember that Ghost flu thing? Where everyone seemed to be getting random ghost powers?”

  
  
“I remember,” Valerie said dryly. She almost destroyed so much of her things through accidental ecto-blasts. At least it gave her practice for controlling the cube lasers in her upgraded suit.

“Like that, but more powers and permanent. And he’s got 20 years to get those powers under his control. In addition he has alliances with a lot of ghosts like Skulker, so minions too." 

"So all this is trying to create someone like him?” It didn’t excuse what she saw, the failed clones, the dissections, but it was at least understandable.” 

"Not just anyone, he’s trying to recreate _me_. My mother’s child who would share something with him, something one no else would. He’s trying to recreate me as their child.”

Valerie suddenly understood why Phantom had thrown up when the got out of the house, she could feel her stomach twisting. “Her human DNA?” God she hoped the answer wasn’t what she thought. 

“Probably mine too." 

"Fuck.” Because what else was there to say. “We have to save her.”

“I know.” There had been such a temptation to just grab her and get out, but he’d overheard the same conversation between the intruder and whoever she was talking to. The girl wasn’t stable yet and removing her from the pod would kill her. “Maybe we should help the lady who broke into Vlad’s.”

Valerie gave him a look. “You want us to work with a random thief?”

“One, she is a very good thief to get through all of Vlad’s defense. Two, she wanted to save the girl as much as we did, and was stopped for the same reason. Three,“ Danny threw his arms up. "What could we do next? She’s half human. She’s going to need food, clothes, a safe place to sleep at night. I can’t supply _any_ of that for her. If thief lady is an adult who’d care for her, she can give her a much better life than I could.”

  
  
“What about your family? Wouldn’t they be happy to have a part of you that’s still alive?”

  
  
Phantom winced and Valerie realized how cruel a statement that was. But before she could apologize (no matter how much is galled her) Phantom spoke first. “I want to believe that. I want to so badly. But I don’t know. Mom and Dad…they don’t like ghosts. They think we’re all monsters. And while I want to think they could look past the half ghost thing and see her as a person I’m not _sure_.”

  
  
There was a lot to unpack there, and for the most part Valerie didn’t care to. Too many paradigm shifts in one day, she wasn’t going to start feeling sympathy for the ghost who ruined her life. “I miss this morning, when my only concern was whether I could blast you out of the sky." 

Phantom snorted. "And I miss thinking you were so low on the danger scale you needed Kwan to beat people up for you. Disabused me of _that_ real fast." 

Valerie sat up, studying the ghost who hadn’t seemed to think he’d said anything unusual. But when he had described was when she’d been one of the popular kids, a status she lost before becoming the Huntress. A time in her life Phantom had no reason to know anything about. Unless… "Did we know each other? Before you died?" 

Phantom winced, though whether it was from the mention of his death or the detail of his former life he’d accidentally brought up she couldn’t say. "I wouldn’t say we knew each other. Like I knew of you ‘cause you were one of the A-list kids, but it’s not like we ever spoke before the accident." 

He’d attended Casper High before dying in an accident. His parents were anti-ghost. And Valerie realized she filing away clues in her mind. Somewhere in this horrible day she’d discovered Phantom had been a person like her. And if she needed a diversion to keep her from lighting up the mayor, uncovering the mystery of who Phantom has been was a hell of a distraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I want to do is bring D-Stabilized to it's natural conclusion. We never saw the real aftermath of what Valerie learned and what she did with the knowledge since we slid so quickly to the series finale, which is a shame because I wanted to see that more than anything else.


	7. The Ghost Town Job Snippet 4

“I asked you to protect the children!”

  
  
“Mr. Lancer-”

But the Vice Principal wasn’t hearing anything. “I didn’t know what I was asking you to do when I sent you after Vlad, I didn’t know any of this! But the one thing…the one damned thing above all others I asked of you-”

“Mr. Lancer, there’s something you need to see.” Nate walked of to the side of the apartment and opened a door. 

Lancer peered in, unsure of anything he could see that would change anything, and his heart caught in his throat.

There were two children lying in bed asleep. One was a girl he didn’t know, she looked about middle school age. The other was - “Mr. Fenton?”

Nate gently closed the door, so as not to wake them. “When we realized the full scope of the situation we were in, we found ourselves in an impossible position. Danny’s safety was inherently tied into Masters keeping his secret a secret. And if Masters were outted, he’d take Danny down with him. However the only option to not have Vlad out him was to leave things as they were, which I’m sure you could see why we couldn’t. There was no way out that left Danny with his life, so Danny Fenton had to ‘die’.”

“But the Ecto signature…the body…GIW confirmed…”

Nate’s expression darkened. “Masters had been experimenting with cloning, making a perfect copy of Danny to be his minion. A thankful side effect was he has entire vats of ectoplasm that had Danny’s equivalent of Ghost-DNA as well as some human DNA body scraps. That’s the ‘remains’ the GiW confirmed. As of right now the only people besides you who know Danny Fenton is alive are the people who already knew he was Phantom.”

“His parents?”

  
  
“Not on that list.”

Lancer looked at him aside. “Doesn’t that seem cruel?”

Nate considered for a second. “I could tell you we needed their reaction to be genuine and believable, that’s what we told Jazz. But that would be a lie. The truth is, even if they didn’t know what their son was, he and Phantom had the exact same face. As a father, I can’t imagine looking at someone with my son’s face and still pulling the trigger. Much less repeatedly hunt said person downto kill or dissect.” The disgust in Nate’s voice was apparent. “When all’s said and done, the only difference between the Fentons and the GiW was government backing. So no, I didn’t and still don’t trust them with their son’s safety.” He paused. “And neither did Danny. Danny could have defanged Vlad early on if he was willing to tell his parents the truth about the accident. But the sheer fact that he continually took Vlad’s abuse rather than even hint to his parents that he might be part ghost tells it’s own story.”

It did, loathed as Lancer was to admit it. “And now?”

“The first step is going to be setting Danny up with a new identity so he actually has a chance to live his life. The second,” Nate gave a predatory grin. “We’re going to steal a government agency and run it into the ground.”


End file.
